Secondary Navigation

Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Announces LeadFreeNYC, a Comprehensive Plan to End Childhood Lead Exposure

January 28, 2019

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Dr. Galvez, I just want to thank you. Obviously, you've committed your whole life to protecting kids, and you understand, because you spent the years you did here in the Bronx, how important it is to reach out to families, to help them understand the truth, to help them understand what can be done to protect children. As I was listening to you, as a parent myself, I really felt the point you made. There's so much mystery about lead in the eyes of parents and it's so important that we reach them, that we educate them, that we protect children in every conceivable way and reassure parents that really important things can be done to protect children in the beginning and to address any problems that emerge. But what you described – that history you described, encourages me knowing how much progress has been made. But now, it's up to us to go the last mile here to finish the mission.

And so today we make clear that New York City commits to zero lead in our city. We commit to ending the scourge of lead paint poisoning once and for all. This is a Vision Zero approach. This report today literally is the plan to end once and for all lead paint poisoning in New York City. There is no city in this nation that has put together a more aggressive approach. And I want people to be clear from the beginning, we mean literal eradication. The vision here is that there will be a day not so long from today when not a single child in this city suffers from lead paint exposure. It is a daunting task but it can be done. And I want to thank Commissioner Garcia and everyone associated with this report. It was a huge effort over the last few months with a number of agencies involved to get down to the truth of what it would take to get to zero. And the people you'll hear from today from this administration took that mission on with a whole heart and they believe it can be done and it will be done.

We understand the fear that so many families have and the heartache that they feel, and we now know that we can end this once. And for all we know over the decades there were diseases that afflicted children and afflicted families that once were on everyone's mind and now, thank God, are no longer part of our experience in the city and in this country. We want to make lead exposure one of those diseases of the past and we believe it can be done. So this is a very powerful way for us to begin City Hall in Your Borough in the Bronx. This is a borough that for so long has not gotten the attention it deserved. What we say every time we go into a borough for City Hall in Your Borough is, we're going to focus the energies of the entire administration on addressing the issues of the borough.

Here's an issue that affects the whole city, but it's the kind of thing that exemplifies some of the history of the Bronx in particular where problems occurred without getting the attention they deserve. And as you'll hear today – and I want you to look at the chart over there, which is also in the report – the central problem we have is in private housing stock and we're going to be much more aggressive – in fact, need new laws, which we believe we will have the support of the City Council on to get much more deeply into our private housing stock to address the core problem because that's where we can ultimately make the big progress we need to eradicate this problem once and for all.

I want to thank all of the leaders of agencies and all of their teams who contributed to this report. And I especially want to thank all of the good people in the agencies who are going to be part of bringing this vision to life. This is a very intense game plan. This is something that's never been done before. If you want to know how it's going to happen, look behind me to these good people who are going to be at the front line of this, and I want to thank all of them. Everyone, give your neighbor a round of applause.

[Applause]

These folks represent all of the agencies that will be a part of this Vision Zero effort, and it is going to be intense, and it's going to be a mission for all of these agencies. And the only way we get to zero is with everyone participating. I want to thank in particular Dr. Oxiris Barbot, our Health Commissioner; Maria Torres Springer, our Housing Commissioner, our Environmental Protection Commissioner Vinny Sapienza; of course, Dr. Mitch Katz, the President of Health and Hospitals – and thank you for welcoming us and supporting this work – and our Commissioner for Social Services Steve Banks. In addition, the First Deputy Commissioner of Parks Liam Kavanagh; and the General Counsel and Deputy Commissioner at the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, Sonia Lin. All of these agencies and more are going to be in the frontline of this effort. Also someone who has supported us in all of our efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of children, both of physical health and mental health – Council Member Andy Cohen, thank you for your great support.

So with that, I want to go over the basics here. So you heard from Dr. Galvez that New York City has led the way historically. In 1960 – banned lead paint 18 years before the federal government did it, and that is – that was a first of many efforts in New York City undertook that as part of why we have been able to continue to drive down lead paint exposure. 2004 – Local Law 1, which I was proud to vote for in the City Council, forcing landlords to identify and remove lead hazards. Those actions and others – and a lot of vigorous enforcement by HPD, by the Health Department, and others – resulted in a 90 percent reduction in the number of children under the age of six who were exposed to lead paint and lead in general. And this is crucial, because those years under six years old that are the time where there's the greatest vulnerability for kids.

So we've seen a 90 percent drop in the course of about 13 years. Now, we will take this to zero. Now, it's very clear that the biggest problem as I mentioned, is in private housing. In fact, about 97 percent of the children with elevated lead levels live in private housing in the City. So, we're going to have to do a lot more there, including getting into smaller buildings, than Local Law 1 previously covered. And we're going to work with the City Council to change the law, to strengthen it, and to put the toughest rules in place that this city has ever known and any city has ever known. And it means we're going to call upon landlords in those smaller buildings to step up and do the kinds of tests and the kinds of improvements that others have had to do. In addition, we will, as has been previously announced, review every single apartment in public housing with new technology to once and for all know which apartments have any remaining existing lead paint and which have none, and to make sure that every apartment is addressed. Also, we're going to take a much more aggressive approach to family shelters as part of our homeless system.

We have to, additionally, change the basic rules about lead. So, we'll toughen the lead paint and dust standards and will require action for even smaller amounts of lead. Every City agency will be working in common cause here, so, if, for example, our Housing Department – HPD – finds the presence of lead in an apartment, it will immediately work to get the parent in that apartment on the phone with Department of Health to ensure the parent has all the support and the child has all the support they need. We want an immediate intervention at that point from the Department of Health. And any child who has been exposed, we will work with that family, stay with that child as long as they need us.

Our goal is to identify any hazard immediately to eradicate the hazard, to make sure the child's exposure is ended and to reduce the lead in the blood levels of that child back down to safe levels. We want to do that as quickly as possible in each case, that's the best way to make sure a child will come through okay. We're going to have trained Department of Health personnel, nurses and others directly working with each family – a very hands-on approach to ensure that each child is regularly monitored and gets the support they deserve.

Anybody who wants to know how they can get their child tested if they have not gotten a regular checkup for their child under six and they need a checkup or they want to make sure that there's no danger of their child, they can call 3-1-1 and get a free screening. Obviously through any pediatrician as well, a child can be tested.

Now we're going to hold ourselves and all our agencies accountable in this effort. We’ll establish an office of citywide lead compliance to ensure that every agency is at maximum effort to protect our children and we will be regularly reporting to the public on the results that we get. The bottom line is, we can eradicate led from this city. We can identify every source and we can end this problem – that's what we aim to do. We've talked a lot about some of the areas where New York City has reached goals never before seen. We know we are the safest big city in America. I've said the goal is to be the fairest big city in America, and one of the ways we do that is ensuring that there's no more lead, that we are the healthiest big city in America by eradicating lead once and for all.

Let me say a few words in Spanish –

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

So, we're going into a battle here to do something that's never been done before. We needed a very forceful general to prepare us for this battle. I have seen over the last five years the extraordinary efforts of Kathryn Garcia, and when I chose her to lead this effort, she immediately proved me right by coming out with this extraordinary report. And I want to urge everyone to look carefully at it. This all was put together in three-months’ time, starting from scratch and finding the very best policies and ideas here and around the country and coming up with a single unified plan. It's an extraordinary piece of a combined effort by so many people that's going to make a huge, huge difference.

So, my honor to introduce Commissioner Kathryn Garcia –

[Applause]

Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, Department of Sanitation: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just want to really thank you for the opportunity to actually get to work on such an important issue. What you'll find in this roadmap is a really comprehensive set of policies and strategies that will put us on the path to eliminating childhood lead exposure. It's the result of an enormous amount of hard work by a lot of people – too many to thank – who have helped me and have helped put together this report. And we are really excited to get started on these initiatives. And some of them we have already started, as we found things that were worth beginning. The Mayor said, don't wait – let's get going.

I want to start with some simple context. Local Law 1 has led to tremendous progress, the law that targeted lead paint in certain homes and in certain concentrations. What we're proposing today goes well beyond that with the goal of zero exposure. And no big city, no state has come close to that, and we will be the first.

When we started this review in October, the Mayor gave some very explicit marching orders – look at every home, every source of exposure, every child, and do it with a sense of urgency. With that, I started by reviewing what every agency was doing. What we found was that people really were doing good work on preventing lead exposure, but there were places and opportunities where we needed to strengthen that work or make it more coordinated between agencies. I'm a mom. I actually pulled out my kids' medical records over the last few weeks to figure out whether or not I knew whether or not they had had a test for their blood lead levels. I could not find it in their records. They're too old to go to pediatricians at this point in time, but it was not something I was well educated on as a parent. And I can imagine that being provided with a test result that would have shown a high elevated blood lead level would have been really scary for me.

How do you find out information? What are you supposed to do? What are the interventions? Everyone wants the best for their children and this can be devastating news. So, how do you make sure a red flag in a doctor's office or in a home inspection triggers every City agency to leap into action? We have so much – so many resources and so much strength in terms of the different skill-sets of our City agencies. We really wanted to leverage that.

So let me give you an example of the kind of places where we saw a need to ratchet up operations to better serve families. The Health Department does great outreach about harmful consumer products like ceramics, jewelry, or cosmetics that really contain surprising quantities of lead if actually look at some of the data. I was like – am I looking at these numbers? This isn’t parts per million, but this says it is one million parts. So it was literally pure lead that were in some of these products, but it's still many people are not aware that one of the most common causes of lead exposure are products like these, second only to paint. So we're building on that good work. We're expanding that outreach, but also finding ways to change the regulatory structure to get these products off the market. We'll create a lead products index that consolidates all the bad products in one place. We will train business owners and find suppliers of these products and make sure New Yorkers know if they're bringing home products containing lead.

That is just one example of the work that's ahead of us. Many of you know that paint is the biggest challenge when it comes to lead exposure. As the Mayor said, we are going to work with the City Council to make our standards on lead paint the toughest of any big city. We want to lower the amount of lead that triggers remediation abatements so that we can remove that hazard from a child’s home. A statistic that will be surprising to a lot of people is it the vast majority of kids with elevated blood lead levels – 97 percent – live in private housing, not public housing. Those kids make up just 3 percent of the total. So we need to be thinking about lead paint in more places where we know it is posing a risk. That is why we'll be working with the Council to require annual inspections of one- and two-family homes for the first time protecting more children under six. This is a big deal. Originally, Local Law 1 did not cover apartments in one- and two-family homes. So we are making that change. Now, we will be able to say for the first time that every rental apartment in the City of New York will be subject to an annual inspection so that we are being preventative.

We are also built boosting of Local Law 1 to be far more proactive. We are making a building lead index that will identify 200 buildings a year for proactive audits and inspection. It'll be based on the building’s age, prior violations, and what the rates are in those neighborhoods, whether or not that's blood testing levels or elevated blood lead levels in children. We are also going to make sure that construction work is done safely because renovation where there's lead paint can create a lot of very, very unsafe lead dust. We're going to do this through better coordination between all the agencies that protect kids and homes from lead contamination, including the Department of Buildings, HPD, and the Health Department.

As you already know, NYCHA is going to begin testing all 135,000 NYCHA apartments for lead and make sure all the hazards are fixed. We are also going to take a similar approach of testing and abatement at our family shelter units, essentially making them lead free. These are not small project. These are big and for good reason.

We were also going to do more with technology. So much has changed since Local Law 1’s passage when everything was on paper. I mean this is a time before the invention of the iPhone, or apps, or being connected at all times. There's a lot more we can do with data. There's a lot more we can do that will make it easier on both the landlord community, but as well as on our ability to enforce. We are also adding lead testing to our immunization registry, just like vaccinations. That means no matter where you move or if you switched doctors, your child's pediatrician will be able to access their lead history online and they'll know if you're up to date, on track for your testing, and whether or not that is in your history. It will stay with you. We'll move landlord paperwork online to make it easier for them to file and easier for us to spot negligent landlords. There are more than a dozen new initiatives in this plan and many more existing ones that are being improved and expanded.

The Mayor gave us a mission of making sure every kid grows up in a safe and healthy environment, and he's given us the resources to achieve it. We're implementing this in full-force. Some of it has already started, some of it will start today, and we really committed to making sure that there are no children who are exposed to lead in this City and that they continue to grow up and be safe and healthy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Commissioner – just, excellent presentation and thank you for your extraordinary effort. One thing I think would be helpful right now is to help people understand, obviously the lead paint is the number one concern, but you mentioned those consumer products and the problems they pose. Can you just delineate for people right now the types of products so that that information can get out to the public?

Commissioner Garcia: Absolutely. And the Health Department is starting literally today outreach and a campaign to make sure that people recognize what these products are. So, there are cosmetics, particularly called cosmetics that are part of this. There are some cultural powders that are heavily made up of dust that is used in the South Asian – Asian community. There's also been links to certain spices. For example, there's a lot of work the health department has done with the country of Georgia in terms of that coming in, as well as ceramics that are brought in from other countries that often contain high levels of lead and then when you use them or put food into them, obviously leech into the food. So we hope that along with this outreach campaign that hopefully the media can also spread the word. This is a particularly challenging area when it comes to lead.

Mayor: Thank you very much. Now, I want to turn to another crucial member of the team who's been working on this issue over these last years. And her and her team played a very big role in putting together the proposals that you see here before you today. And I also want to particularly note that Dr. Palacio is a proud Bronxite and understands the impact of all these policies on every-day people and has been one of the drivers to make sure that what we do we'll reach deep to the grassroots right down to those small one- and two-family buildings.

With that, my honor to introduce our Deputy Mayor Dr. Herminia Palacio –

Deputy Mayor Herminia Palacio, Health and Human Services: Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, for your support and your commitment to making New York City the healthiest city in the nation, and for your particular passion and commitment around healthy children. And Thank you Commissioner Garcia for your hard work and leadership in this very important mission to pull together the City agencies and elaborate this effort. And thank you, Dr. Galvez, for your work and your advocacy. As a physician, I often talk about how I needed both the science of medicine and the art of medicine to take really good care of my patients. And as a public health practitioner, I also really understand the role of both the science and the art of a public health approach to take really good care of communities.

The legacy of lead exposure that we're talking about here started over a hundred years ago with the industrialized use of lead in far too many spaces. And as has been noted through the bold in New York City local laws and strong public health action, we have achieved a 90 percent reduction in the number of children with elevated blood lead levels since 2005. And as the Mayor said, we are now standing at the beginning of the last mile. The power of this roadmap is that it stands on the solid foundation of the science, but it moves us forward through the art of citywide collaboration to achieve our goals. The question that we asked ourselves is what can we do together to further protect the children from ever being exposed to lead in the first place and to arm families and health care providers with the tools they need to make it even easier for children to get appropriate care and services if they have been exposed.

Today, we are announcing that together we are strengthening regulations to make our homes free of peeling lead paint. Together we are augmenting policies that pull contaminated products like toys and spices off of our shelves. Together, we are building innovative technology to make sure that physicians have easy access to their patient's lead results with the simple stroke of a few keys. Together we are hiring more nurses to link families of children with elevated blood lead levels to the care they need. Together we are sending reminders to parents and physicians to ensure that every child is tested for lead when they are one year old and again when they are two years old.

So I've listed some of the things that we will do, but together means all of us. So here I'm going to be telling you what I'm asking you to do to join us in this fight. Landlords, please inspect your units timely and fixed peeling paint. Physicians, test your patients for elevated blood levels and work closely with the Department of Health as you care for your children. Parents, please remember to take your child to the pediatrician and ensure that their lead levels are tested at both ages one and two, and if you have any concerns. Parents, if your child doesn't have a health care provider or if you just want more information about lead, you can call 3-1-1 today and you'll be connected to someone who can help answer your questions or help connect you with care. Redoing all of this because our children, our children individually and collectively deserve safe and healthy places to live, learn, play and grow. So what you're hearing today is, this is it. We're at the last mile and this leg will feel much shorter if we walk it together.

[Applause]

And a few words in Spanish now –

[Deputy Mayor Palacio speaks in Spanish]

[…]

Mayor:  Thank you very much – appreciate it.

[Applause]

And, Rachel, you will get your wish because any landlord who is not protecting our children will feel the consequences. That is the bottom line. There’s going to be a lot more enforcement, a lot more inspections, and we will take legal action as needed, along with good advocates like you, to ensure that any landlord who endangers our children is in harm’s way themselves.

So, I want to take media questions on this report and this plan – and then we’ll let everyone here go back to their good works and we’ll take media questions on other topics. But first, on this report and this plan that we’ve outlined today. Marcia?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: It’s important to have the microphone on, Marcia.

Question: [Inaudible] question to you is I know you’ve talked a lot about the fact – you said 97 percent of the kids who get lead poisoning are in private homes not NYCHA. So, the question becomes how do you enforce the law? How do you make landlords [inaudible] one- and two-family homes to make sure there [inaudible]?

Mayor: Great question. I’ll start and then pass to Commissioner Garcia. As this task force looked at the problem it became glaringly clear that we had to get into those smaller homes that the law – even though in it’s time, Local Law 1 was considered a huge step forward – that it had to be strengthened. We’ve got to get into those smaller homes. We’ve got to have stronger tools for enforcement. We’ve got to do more inspections. All of that is necessary to ensure the kind of accountability we need. So, Commissioner, why don’t you delineate some of those steps?

Commissioner Garcia: So, absolutely – and as the advocates rightfully pointed out there are opportunities within the law and there are tools that we can use when we are working jointly. So, one of the things that we – I think is very important is to have the Department of Buildings working closely with the Health Department when we hear about, that there is construction going on that is unsafe. There are very clear standards about what you have to do and if they are not following it, we need to stop the work immediately. So we – that is something that is going to start happening right away – these coordinated inspections across agencies.

So, that is getting at some of the worst landlords. In terms of the one- and two-family homes, our starting point is to do a lot of outreach into this community. They haven’t had to do this particular activity before. It might seem like a lot of work but this is literally a visual inspection and if they have a lead paint hazard i.e. their paint is peeling then they need to repair it. It’s regular maintenance work that should happen. But our first focus with that particular group of buildings is to do a lot of outreach to make sure we’re doing the education so people understand what the requirements are.

Question: [Inaudible] force the owner of a building or [inaudible] to let you do inspections inside?

Mayor: The goal is for the landlords, these smaller landlords, to do their own inspections and to fix the problem but if they are not doing them, yes, we will go in and do them ourselves when we need to. But to Commissioner Garcia’s point, we need to do maximum education. I think the vast majority of small landlords – you’re talking about, you know, family-owned buildings – certainly want to protect the people in their buildings. They want to protect the health of their own families as well. So, I think they will receive this in a positive spirit.

This is about protecting kids. I think they’ll understand it. But the Commissioner is right – we’re going to do a lot of education. We’re going to show people how to do the inspections. We’re going to show people how to do the fixes to make sure that it’s safe. And the other thing to remember is that everyone behind us – back on the point about the building sites – all of these agencies are out there all the time. And one of the powerful elements of this plan is to say that every agency is in this.

So, if the Housing Department sees something that is relevant to the Health Department, they’re going to work together. If the Health Department sees something that the Housing Department needs to enforce on or the Buildings Department needs to enforce on, they’re going to work together. There is going to be a zero tolerance approach.

If you see a construction site where there is lead dust that could be endangering people, we are going to come in like gangbusters to shut down that site and those contractors, those owners will be held accountable. So, it’s a very aggressive plan using the whole City government. Yes, Grace?

Question: Just wanted to follow up on two points. If you’re a tenant and there is construction in your building, how would you distinguish dust as like regular construction dust versus lead dust? Are there simpler signs that might trigger you to call the City [inaudible]?

Commissioner Garcia: So if you are in a building that is pre-1978 or pre-1960, we presume that it is lead. So, you don’t have to, as a tenant, figure out whether or not or do a test. The City will do that. The Health Department will come and they will take a dust wipe and they will find out whether or not you are being exposed to harmful lead dust.

Mayor: And just to clarify a public information point, Kathryn, that is a call to 3-1-1.

Commissioner Garcia: That is a call to 3-1-1.

Mayor: So, Grace, I just – I want to make it real plain. Anybody who is living in a building, sees construction in their building, is worried it might be lead dust, call 3-1-1, let the experts figure it out. The Health Department will come over and do the test.

Question: And on the inspections, when you were saying the goal is for smaller landlords to do their own inspections. Does that mean they will inspect their own buildings themselves or they need to hire someone who then [inaudible] some sort of certificate of inspection [inaudible]?

Commissioner Garcia: So, for the first piece of Local Law 1, which is the visual inspection, we’re just literally looking to see if there is peeling paint. You do not need to be certified to do that. And so it should not – we want to make sure that we give people the tools to understand what they should be looking for but that is literally what you are looking for.

Mayor: Okay, Juliet?

Question: How did you determine that 97 percent of affected children or children are in private homes? What is that [inaudible] –

Commissioner Garcia: So, this is based on – and this is information, one of the things I think if very important about the work that we’re doing and going forward is making sure that we’re being much more transparent. For example, the Health Department now releases the data from the testing that is given to them from the State on children with elevated blood lead levels and it is the address when that test was taken that is how we correlate between private housing versus NYCHA housing.

Mayor: Juliet, just do you have it – the chart on page seven, the same as over there, delineates –

Commissioner Garcia: This is actually under six. That is under 18.

Mayor: I’m sorry. So, which –

Commissioner Garcia: That is under six – all children under six. And you can see there is a bar that shows a number of children who lived at NYCHA when their test was taken and the number of children who lived in a private building when their test was taken.

Mayor: Okay, Dave?

Question: [Inaudible] how much is all this going to cost? What’s the –

Mayor: So, I’m going to separate the City budget impact and then the money that we believe we can tap into from both the federal government and the State government. So, the City budget impact starting in the budget that will be passed in June would be $12 million a year over the next four years. So, about $50 million in City resources over four years. The total plan for the next four years is $180 million. The number one element of that is federal funding that we can program to this. We also expect additional State and federal grants because of the way this initiative would fit with State and federal funding streams.

Question: My main question, though, is how much – I know you said only three percent of the children who do have lead poisoning are in NYCHA housing. How much [inaudible] fixed here because of the possibility that they’re looking to take over?

Mayor: As you can see this is about everything. If we had only wanted to send a message to HUD, we would have just focused on the smaller part of the problem which is public housing. We actually – this whole public debate caused us to go back and look at everything, private housing, public housing, shelters, products that people buy, everything.

So, the mandate here to the Commissioner and her team was to look at all elements of the lead problem and every way we can protect children and how we get to zero. Clearly this also confirms what we’ve said publicly before. We’re going to evaluate every single NYCHA apartment once and for all, for the first time in our history know which ones have lead and which ones not – and those that have lead, we’re going in to fix once and for all. That’s the whole concept here. Monica?

Question: I’m reading your executive summary. It says, “Test all 135,000” – we’re live on Facebook –

Mayor: Yes.

Question: People on Facebook are asking when is it going to happen? There’s 135,000 apartments, according to your own executive summary. People – moms and dads are living with their kids right now. So, what kind of sense of urgency – I know your Commissioner said there was a sense of urgency. Tell me the time frame – when it is going to get done? Will there be SWAT teams – there was some word that there might be SWAT teams going in [inaudible] more about –

Mayor: This we’ll start this year. It is using the latest technology that literally can look through all of the layers of paint that have ever been there and determine once and for all if there is any lead paint. Once we know an apartment has no lead paint, first of all, what a relief to the family to know, and any other family in the future, there is none. Again, it starts this year. And I believe, Kathryn, we expect to be finished by next year [inaudible] –

Commissioner Garcia: By the end of 2020.

Mayor: So, we will be able to go apartment by apartment – and we want to put out these statistics on a rolling basis. We don’t want to do it all and then report it at the end. We want to tell people in real time as we get solid results, we now know this apartment has no lead, literally can’t have any lead.

And then the ones that we do confirm lead in, we go in, and we remediate right away. So, vis-a-vis your point – SWAT teams, yes. There’s going to be fast efforts when – I’m using a term that you’re using but I agree with the idea of urgency. We’re going to send in teams quickly to address what we find. But for the first time ever we’re going to be able to give people peace of mind that when we know there’s no lead and there can’t be any lead, they’ll know that for a fact.

Commissioner Garcia: The one thing I would like to add because I think that this is an important distinction, is the plan using the new XRF technology at NYCHA which will end in the full abatement of those apartment so that we can clarify forever and get to lead free. That does not mean that we’re waiting. NYCHA has done their visual inspections to see if there is peeling lead paint – well, peeling paint. We don’t yet know whether or not it’s lead but we’re going to fix those now with the presumption that it is lead. So, we are – NYCHA is in those apartments right now, if there is a child under six, doing those remediations. They may not be lead paint but we’re not taking any chances so those are getting remediated now.

Question: Just to follow – the Queensbridge House back in April, you told me all apartments were tested. So, why should the families trust you inside NYCHA that this is the accurate –

Mayor: Local Law 1, the law of this city, requires annual testing and that is what we have been following, that law, and completing those annual tests and acting on it. But the problem is Local Law 1 did not include a mandate to use technology –  I don’t think they even had this advanced technology in 2004 – to literally be able to know the entire history of the building. The technology we now have can tell us once and for all if there has ever been any lead in the paint in that building. That’s the difference. We’re following the law but we’re going now beyond the law and putting a mandate on ourselves to be able to decide once and for all if there is lead in an apartment. Yes?

Question: Mayor, you mentioned earlier that landlords could be subject to legal action. What about [inaudible] penalties? Are there any penalties that –

Commissioner Garcia: Yes, I’m going to turn it over to Commissioner Torres-Springer but yes there are both civil and criminal penalties within the law.

Question: Can you specify differences between current and the future?

Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer, Department of Housing & Preservation: I’m happy to do that. So currently for every lead violation there is a minimum of $250 per violation per day, up to a maximum of $10,000. Those are for general lead violations. For false certifications where landlords are providing information, saying things that turn out to not be true, we certainly do throw the book at those landlords in terms of penalties and further litigation. That range is from about $1,000 to $3,000. Moving forward we are looking as part of a more general review to increase penalties for landlords. And so for lead that would now be in the range of $1,500 to $5,000. So we certainly start – the first order of business is to repair the condition in the apartments to make sure that children are safe and then we use every tool and now we have even more tools due to this comprehensive report to make sure we are throwing the book at landlords who need it.

Question: The $250 minimum would now be $1,500 to $5,000?

Commissioner Torres-Springer: The $1,500 to $5,000 is specifically for false certifications.

Question: Okay, what about the $250 minimum?

Commissioner Torres-Springer: Well there the range is quite broad right? As I mentioned its $250 all the way $10,000 – so we believe those are, that is a good range and we will work as aggressively as possible to make sure that where landlords are not doing what they are supposed to, we are doing everything we can to hold them accountable.

Mayor: Commissioner, just clarify please, I want to make sure that I understand it and everyone understands it. That’s per incident?

Commissioner Torres-Springer: That’s correct.

Mayor: So if a landlord has more than one problem, that fine can be applied multiple times.

Commissioner Torres-Springer: That’s correct.

Mayor: So you’re saying up to – you said $10,000, did I hear you correctly?

Commissioner Torres-Springer: That’s right.

Mayor: Up to $10,000 per violation.

Commissioner Torres-Springer: That’s for the total actually, sir. But we are – but that still a significant, a significant amount. And we are constantly of course, also reviewing all of the penalty structures to make sure they are the most aggressive stick we could possibly use to ensure compliance.

Mayor: Let’s go way back first. Yes, you?

Question: Yes to clarify about consumer products and the lead index that is going to be created, is there going to be any additional regulation to get those products off the marker rather than putting the onus on consumers to you know, to watch out for yet another hazardous or harmful thing in the stuff that they buy?

Commissioner Garcia: So there is actually a lot of authority within the health code currently but if there is anything that they need we are looking through exactly how to do this. We believe that we can do it through the Board of Health for any additional regulatory authority. But no, our desire is to get anything that is in a store in New York City off the shelves. But we also need to make sure that we are telling people that it is out there and also educating store owners because they may be stocking something and not realize that it is heavily leaded. The other piece of this is that people often bring things from out of the United States that may have been made of lead as well. So there’s a two pronged approach, there’s both what is getting sold in the city and there’s also what gift did you get when a relative visited from a foreign country and we wanted to make sure that folks are aware that that can also be a source of lead.

Question: Okay. You want to protect children in their homes. How about in their schools? Most of your schools were built before 1978. As a parent leader I have watched paint being put on these walls and buildings. Some go back to the 1800’s, 1890’s. Why aren’t you using this technology in the schools?

Mayor: I’ll let Kathryn go into detail but I want to say you see that overall chart of progress. Schools have been a part of that for sure because in our schools we control the situation entirely, obviously and there’s been tremendous effort to ensure that there are not lead problems. So Katheryn why don’t you speak to how that has been addressed.

Commissioner Garcia: Certainly, so obviously we do have schools in the city that were built a long time ago. But we also have a strong maintenance program within the City of New York to make sure that schools are safe and healthy. And they take a strong and whenever they are doing any work in schools, they are very hyper compliant with safe work practices and with ensuring that there is no lead dust emanated from those as well as ensuring that there is no peeling paint in those buildings. And so we feel very confident that this is not something in which there is a source of exposure that could particularly be causing children to have high lead levels. In addition we want to also separate out for the Health Department also oversees sort of daycares and makes sure that those are investigated and ensure that those are safe and healthy environments for children.

Mayor: Dr. Barbot, do you want to add anything?

Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: I think doctor, Commissioner – I was going to call you doctor because it’s clear you have learned so much about lead, I really appreciate that. No, I think Commissioner Garcia covered it. And I just want to say you know, as the city’s doctor and as a pediatrician, I feel proud to be a part of this work because I think we are putting the emphasis where it really is needed in terms of coordinating efforts to ensure that we eliminate potential sources of exposure because from a public health perspective that really is what is going to make the biggest difference for our children.

Mayor: Thank you. Who hasn’t gone? Jill?

Question: Mayor, just going back to the question of landlords doing some of these, at least the first part of the inspections on their own and you know, how you are going to get – I’m curious how you intend to ensure that private landlords comply with the law because as we know, even at  an organization like NYCHA which is in a much better place to comply with the law, through a series of mishaps, didn’t comply with it for several years and didn’t conduct these inspections so how are you going to make sure that other people do?

Mayor: Because we are going to do the opposite of what happened with NYCHA. Look, let’s be clear and I, this pains me, it should pain all of us. At some point in the previous administration those inspections in NYCHA stopped. I have no clue how that was allowed to happen. That’s the fundamental problem here. We are going to conversely, make this a city priority. We are going to be blaring it from every rooftop that everyone had to join this effort to eradicate lead once and for all from this city. You know I want to remind people, you know there were diseases, think of polio, think of other diseases that used to be gripping and horrible and parents lived in fear of them and now no one talks about them anymore because of extraordinary public health efforts. We are going to do that with lead. But it is going to mean every single agency is involved, we are going to be constantly educating the people of this city about how they can be part of eradicating lead. So the point is we are going to keep it front and center. We are going to education the same land lords. Look these are mom and pop operations, they are doing their best. I’m sure they want to follow the law but they probably need to be given a chance to understand it and how they can go about it, where they can get help. We’ll have a help line they can call, we’ll have videos online showing people how to go about it. We’ll give them a grace period to get used it. We want to get it right. But I think Jill, some of this is just constantly telling people it must be done and that’s going to make a big difference.

Commissioner Garcia: May I just add one more thing? One of the things that I think if challenging is how do you maintain these paper records for ten years? So we will be working very hard to put something online that is a very simple check list – do you have a unit, did you visually inspect, did you have a vacancy, did you abate your doors and windows – and that allows us to do a lot of data matching across other city records – to know whether or not someone isn’t actually telling us and then be able to do outreach to those people. And if they continue to not be compliant and then to think about whether or not they need to do enforcement. So we want to make sure that we are using data tools to one, make it easier for landlords, and two to make it so we know whether or not we have gaps.

Question: On a kind of different subject. What about people who own, I know that often has to be disclosed when you sell a property –

Mayor: People who?

Question: People who own their property?

Mayor: Well that’s what we are talking about here with those small buildings. What am I missing?

Question: Not renting them. People who –

Mayor: Oh you mean just their own homes.

Question: Yes. Is there any effort to reach out to families – you know who might live in a brownstone or a row home that’s old as New York City and there could be you know the paint, what’s going on?

Mayor: First I will start and then pass to the Commissioner. Look, this is going to be a huge public education effort. Because a lot of people understandably don’t know the details on how you eradicate lead and how you address the problem. We will do a huge education effort to make sure that all New Yorkers understand. But you talk about the specifics.

Commissioner Garcia: Certainly so, we will do a lot of outreach in terms of what are the hazards within anyone’s individual home. As in most cases within the law is that if you own your own home you are responsible for it. But we intend to make sure , particularly in areas where children aren’t getting their blood tested, that we are doing outreach there as well as they will be part of anything in terms of the homeowner receiving on these small buildings the same information that someone who owns a small building but rents it and makes sure that were doing it to all owners of the one and two family to let them know about the hazards of lead paint and let them know if they are actually what they have to do stay in compliance.

Mayor: Okay, anyone who has not done a question? Way back. Yup.

Question: I am curious, and this is for Commissioner Garcia, I know you took on the role of the sort of, this was the first action you were doing. How long do you foresee yourself kind of doing this dual role as the Sanitation Commissioner and getting the lead out?

[Laughter]

Commissioner Garcia: I feel like that may have been a more fun title. I intend to be involved for at least the next few months in terms of thinking about how to institutionalize this going forward and make sure that all of these initiatives are getting put in place effectively. I mean I feel very strongly about the work and so I, you know, I will serve as long as the Mayor wants me too but I do also think that making sure that we, for the long term, institutionalize an office to make sure that we’re following up on this, is important to continue the work for the future.

Mayor: Right. And that office will be up and running in the next few months as well. Marcia?

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wondered, is lead pain the biggest culprit or are there any statistics to show what role consumer products, [inaudible] the things that the Commissioner talked about play in terms of lead poisoning in children?

Commissioner Garcia: So lead paint - and the Health Department can add if they’d like to - is by far the biggest source of exposure that they have found and it has been consistent over the years that particularly because small children explore their environment with their hands and their mouths. When you have lead paint that is either peeling or on windows and it’s creating some sort of dust, that is often the case. But there is – the number two source is consumer products. So those are why we have focused mostly on those but it’s been consistent over the years that the lead paint issue is still a problem.

Mayor: And I want to note on the consumer products, we need to do a really comprehensive effort to reach out to every community of this city. We have to educate people to the dangers of all these products and really make it very clear, very visual to parents what’s going on. As the Commissioner indicated, our goal is to get them all of the shelves, but some are being brought in other ways. I know if parents understand that a product, even if it’s something used to from another country, is dangerous to their children, they’ll stop using and they’ll get rid of it. But we’ve got to do that through pediatricians, we’ve got to do that through schools, we’ve got to do that through public information of every kind. We going to do need all media, especially community and ethnic media, to help us get that word out, this is going to be a full court press to educate parents. I bet, Marcia, there are parents who have one of these products sitting there on the shelf. They have no idea it’s dangerous, so it’s our job to help them understand so they can protect their child. Monica –

Commissioner Oxiris Barbot, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Mr. Mayor, what I would add is that when we get notified of a child who has a lead level above five, we do an individualized assessment of each child. So we don’t take for granted, oh this is lead. We do a very detailed history and it’s that history that draws us to ensure that we test any potential exposure for lead.

Mayor: Monica?

Question: Mayor, you’ve [inaudible] mention the family’s that have sick children right now. You – you know, we’re live Facebook – do you want to talk to them directly?

Mayor: Sure.

Question: What do you want to say to them?

Mayor: Any help they need, we’re here to provide it. Our Health Department, Health and Hospitals, anything the families need, we’re going to help them with. But the real goal here is to get those lead levels down and when we get those lead levels down in a child, that’s the best way to help that child move forward. Sometimes we identify the problem quickly, the quicker we find, the quicker we can get the lead levels down. That’s the best way to ensure the long-term health of a child. Yes, Juliet?

Question: Yes, how far along are you on the NYCHA inspection – apartment inspections. And are you using any new methodology or any CompStat style methodology for accountability.

Mayor: I’ll start and Kathryn, join in. NYCHA has instituted a CompStat style approach overall, not just on this issue but a host of issues and that was described when we announced the NYCHA 2.0 plan and that’s having a very positive effect. In terms of the new technology, as I said, that will be online this year and that will be applied to between 130 - 140,000 apartments.  The ones where there is any question about the presence of lead. So all this is moving quickly but we absolutely believe the CompStat style of accountability will make a big difference at NYCHA.

Question: So is there a launch date for when the inspections will begin with this new technology?

Mayor: The – I believe Kathryn help me – the RFP’s are out and we’re just waiting to lock down which contractors will do it and that’s in the next few months.

Commissioner Garcia: Right so those – the XRF testing will start in the spring and so that is what will happen. But they did complete their visual inspection for their 2018 cycle and they are remediating approximately 3,638 apartments with children under six, and that will be completed by the end of February. That is the goal. And they are on track to complete that goal.

Mayor: Did you say a –

Commissioner Garcia: That’s citywide.

Mayor: Did you say approximately 3,000 – what was that please?

Commissioner Garcia: 3,638.

Mayor: Yeah, interesting version of approximately. Okay, anyone else on this plan? You see any other media questions on this plan? Okay, thank you and we’re going to take a quick break to let these good people to go back to other good work. Thank you everyone. Well done.

[…]

Mayor: Okay, we are going to other topics. What have you got? Other topics – anybody, anybody, anybody? Jill?

Question: Mayor, I want to ask you about a story we had this weekend about some people who are already being moved out of DHS sites that are cluster [inaudible] sites. I know you had said that plan was on hold. Some people are already being moved out – it was kind of short notice. I was hoping you could kind of walk us through what’s going on?

Mayor: Let me start and then Commissioner Banks can get into more details. So, first of all, even though the plan is on hold, my hope is it’s a very temporary situation. As I talked to you about last time, we want this transaction to go forward. We want to get that property out of the hands of those landlords, into public control, so that we can provide permanent affordable housing and my hope is that that can be done very quickly. The outreach that was being done to the residents was in light of the fact that up until just a few days ago we expected things to move quickly and we had to get ahead of that. Go ahead, Commissioner.

Commissioner Steven Banks, Department of Social Services: I would just add, as you know, we’ve gotten out of half of the clusters, and so we have a very aggressive plan to get out of clusters and in any given cluster building, we’re always looking to move families to either permanent housing or other locations where they can be served better. In this case we gave notice that’s beyond what’s required by law about moving families to other locations where we thought they could be served better but look, as you know, I’ve represented, before I was Commissioner, represented individual families for a couple of decades and at the end of the day if families were upset about how we proceeded I always want to look back and see if our communication was done properly and that’s what we’re going to do.

Mayor: And please confirm for everyone – all those families are giving – being given alternate shelter.

Commissioner Banks: Oh absolutely, there’s never a situation in which we are closing a cluster building or converting a cluster building to other uses in which a family is not going to end up with either permanent housing or shelters.

Question: Can we go back to, you know, what you said when this was first announced, there was an impression that some of the families who were there might be able to get to stay after they were being transitioned.

Mayor: Right.

Question: Obviously, this woman’s [inaudible] moved out. Is that something – could she potentially wind up back there or what’s the—

Commissioner Banks: No, the priority in any of the cluster closures or conversions is to see whether or not families want to remain at a particular location and so at this building, as with other buildings, there’s been an ongoing engagement with the families to determine which families wanted to remain. The families that did not want to remain – we moved to find other shelter locations for them if they couldn’t be connected with other permanent housing. And there are some families who required different kinds of services and so it’s a – not a one-sized-fits-all approach, it’s a family-by-family approach and in this case the majority of families would like to remain if the building is going to become permanent housing. Other families were connected to other housing, and then we can make it possible for the families in other shelter locations to move into vacant units. It’s all part of a plan to either get out of clusters and convert units wherever we can to permanent housing so that families are in a permanent situation, not a shelter situation.

Mayor: Amen. Okay, Grace?

Question: Corey Johnson this morning sent out a big email saying that he is thinking about running for Mayor in 2021 and that he is only raising money – accepting donations up to $250, so everything below $250. I’m wondering if you have any reaction to his considering jumping into the race and what you make of the idea of running for citywide office by only accepting small donations.

Mayor: So on the question of the race, I mean it’s the beginning of the 2019 – we’re talking about an election November 2021. I’m not going to start handicapping now, but I can say only that I want to express my appreciation for the good work that Speaker Johnson and I have been able to do together. He’s been a good partner and someone I respect a lot. The idea of focusing on those small donations I think is commendable, and he was a strong supporter of the referendum that we put forward to the people back in November that got resounding support, to move our system to lower dollar donations, to get away from big money, to provide more matching and more public support than ever before, so I think it’s commendable that he is focusing on that approach.

Question: Sir, just to follow up, do you think that I can be done successfully? I know you’ve been asked about and talked about sort of – even though you were in favor of a public finance campaign system, that you do need to rely on, in some cases, big donors when you run for office or when you set up these sort of outside non-profits to help support your agenda? But that’s something you felt like was necessary to do the work and to be a candidate?

Mayor: Each situation is different but I think in terms of running for Mayor or running for other offices in the city, the ideal is to rely on low dollar donations to the maximum extent possible and that’s what the new law allows. I think it’s the way of the future. Now, I actually think we should go to full public financing, I think that would be the ideal, but I think until we get rid of the Citizens United decision that’s very hard to achieve. What we put before the people was what we thought was the biggest reachable reform – the biggest reform we could make while dealing with the legal reality of Citizens United, and the people obviously believed in it. So I think that’s the way of the future, I think the goal one day will be to have full public financing. But in the meantime, at least we’ve made a big step forward here in this city. Monica?

Question: I have two questions, one is – it’s NYCHA. [Inaudible] is the deadline fast approaching, will you be asking for an extension and we’re continuing our [inaudible] hot water series—

Mayor: Let’s do the first one first, yeah – it’s a big issue obviously. So Monica, there’s been a lot of – there’s been a lot of dialogue with the federal government. It’s been nonstop, what I said on the radio on Friday is important to recognize – we’ve been able to keep the negotiations going at the highest level. We have missed the presence of a lot of the experts from HUD because they were furloughed, so those folks are just coming back today, so that’s added pressure to the timeline. We still want to achieve this goal, obviously, of this deadline. The central thing I’m thinking about here is the needs of 400,000 New Yorkers who live in public housing and they have to know there will be accountability and there’ll be pathway to improving public housing. Now the plans we put forward, allow the opportunity to do that and that’s because we control the ability to get things done and there is accountability, right here, right now, there’s accountability. We need to ensure, in any final plan, that there is local control, and there’s that kind of accountability so that all of the changes that we’ve put in place can actually happen and that’s one of the central issues being discussed right now with the federal government.

Question: Three buildings at Castle Hill right now, Roxy Reed just texted me, don’t have their heat.

Mayor: Yeah.

Question: Washington Houses, doesn’t have their heat. What do you say to people – you said it was going to better this year.

Mayor: It is better this year and it’s going to get better still.

Question: Could there be a better job? Could you be on top of –

Mayor: Every day we want to do better but I want to remind you of where we were just a weekend ago when we had some of the coldest temperatures we had all year. We had precisely four developments in the entire city that had an outage. The average restoration time was nine hours which is by any measure, public sector or private sector, a very quick turnaround time. That same day, it was the Monday, Dr. King Day holiday, that same day we had over 3000 private buildings in New York City with heat outages, so unquestionably something is changing at NYCHA because they brought in the additional mobile boilers, because they brought in the additional technicians. The number of outages is going down, the amount of time it takes to address the outages is going down – we intend to go further. So to anyone who has an outage right now, rest assured that help is on the way immediately and is going much, much better than last winter. Yes, Marcia?

Question: You said that you won’t rule out the possibility of running for president in 2020 but the polls haven’t been kind to you, so I wonder if that will dissuade you from thinking about a national campaign.

Mayor: Well, as you can see here today Marcia, we’re talking in great detail about how to eradicate lead in New York City and how to improve our public housing, all the issues that I focus on. What I said about the national picture is I’m not going to rule out because we’re living in a very unpredictable time. But I’ll tell you something, those poll numbers, they would have been good numbers for me in some of my earlier races and it’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. Go ahead back there.

Question: [Inaudible] support of a – plans to speed up bus service and crackdown on illegal parking in bus lanes. I’m wondering if that includes, you know, like law enforcement, kind of law enforcement vehicles that were private vehicles that law enforcement officers—

Mayor: Yes.

Question: —that might go and park in bus lanes?

Mayor: Yeah, no, we were very clear the other day that it is everybody. It’s private vehicles that public servants own, and law enforcement owns. It’s also public vehicles, because sometimes they’re the problem. They will be ticketed, they will be towed. We’ve got to clear our bus lanes. Yes.

Question: Mayor, on Friday the City released its latest data on sexual harassment and the numbers were still high, they were actually a little higher, DOE is still high, and there’s a lot complaints that are still – haven’t been substantiated. I wonder if you can comment on that?

Mayor: Well, DOE as you know, we brought in a new group of investigators, and that’s going to allow us to start speeding up the resolution of the complaints. Look, our message to people is abundantly clear who work for the city – if you feel harassed, come forward, you will be believed, we will act on it quickly, and we’ll make sure that there’s justice. I think what’s happening across our whole society is more and more people are coming forward, who might not have in the past, and I give the MeToo movement tremendous credit for that. Everyone’s been educated to think differently and to recognize there will be consequences for wrongdoers. So I think that’s a natural reality that the numbers will go up as people respond to that knowledge, but our job now, even with those bigger numbers, is to quickly adjudicate each one and to show where there’s substantiation there will be real consequences. Yes?

Question: In the East Bronx, there’s a proposal for 225 new units of affordable housing. It’s in an M2 zone, which is manufacturing and developers are seeking an R7A rezoning. Are you in favor of this type of rezoning for affordable housing?

Mayor: It all depends on the specific situation. Obviously, we are particularly focused on creating more and more affordable housing for New Yorkers who need it. But each one is specific, I’m not familiar with the details but we can get back to you on that. So is there anything else? Going once – twice?

Thank you, everyone.



Media Contact

pressoffice@cityhall.nyc.gov
(212) 788-2958